Personal Life
In February 1998, Kirk met his future wife, Kimberly Vertolli, a Naval Intelligence Officer, by chance, while the two were on duty together at the Pentagon. “It was supposed to be my weekend off ... but Saddam had just thrown out the weapons inspectors and we were preparing for a strike on Baghdad,” Vertolli said, according to Capitol File magazine. The two married in August 2001, when Kirk was 41. After eight years of marriage, the two separated, finalizing their divorce in the summer of 2009. Reports have noted that the divorce was an amicable one and the two remain close friends.
Kirk was earlier engaged to Virginia Hurt Johnson, whom he met while both were practicing law in Washington, DC, in 1994. Johnson became the Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 13th congressional district of North Carolina in 2004. She was Counsel to the House Armed Services Committee and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for House Legislative Affairs under Secretaries Rumsfeld and Gates.
Read more about this topic: Mark Kirk
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“I leave the governor’s office next week, and with it public life ... [which] has been on the whole a pleasant one. But for ten years and over my salaries have not equalled my expenses, and there has been a feeling of responsibility, a lack of independence, and a necessary neglect of my family and personal interests and comfort, which make the prospect of a change comfortable to think of.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“That poor little thing was a good woman, Judge. But she just sort of let life get the upper hand. She was born here and she wanted to be buried here. I promised her on her deathbed she’d have a funeral in a church with flowers. And the sun streamin’ through a pretty window on her coffin. And a hearse with plumes and some hacks. And a preacher to read the Bible. And folks there in church to pray for her soul.”
—Laurence Stallings (1804–1968)